Toyota Scion IQ Electric Car To Launch In 2012 344
Mightee writes "Toyota officially announced at an annual dealer meeting in Las Vegas that the all-electric Scion iQ will be launched next year in the United States. According to Toyota, Scion iQ can only go 50 miles on a single charge. Because of this, it will be facing tough competition from 73-mile Nissan Leaf and 85-mile Mitsubishi i."
small... (Score:2, Interesting)
For a daily commuter, it looks a little small. The average size of a 'randomly selected' US commuter car is considerably bigger than this car. I love the concept, but it looks about as 'safe' as commuting via motorcycle.
Heck, at this point I'd consider a smaller car 'enclosed' in a bigger, 'safety' shell.
Re:50 mile range may not be the end of the world (Score:4, Interesting)
In California, you could buy this car and get $5,000 state and $7,500 federal tax credits - lowering the cost of the car by $12,500. The standard gas version of this car is looking to run ~$16,000... well equipped probably $20k. So long as this is in the same ballpark, you -could- be driving an EV for under $10k, and that is a steal for a brand new car.
Re:Screw Electric (Score:4, Interesting)
Solectria Sunrise; 375 miles per charge in 1997 (Score:4, Interesting)
Subject says it all.
LEAF's 73 mile range (Score:3, Interesting)
When did the Nissan LEAF's range get downgraded from 100 miles to 73 miles? Is it by the same process Top Gear used to determine the Tesla Roadster's 55 mile range [wikipedia.org], or by these guys 313 miles [autoblog.com] (official range is 244 miles). If we want to start using the actual range instead of the advertised range as the range number, can we also start using the actual mpg for cars instead of the advertised number?
For reference: I've owned a plug-in converted Prius [hymotion.com] for over a year and a half and speaking from experience, my assisted mode (electric motor constantly assisting gas engine) is roughly 32 miles. In the summer I rarely dip below 100mpg, but in winter I am lucky to get 80mpg. EV range is roughly 18 miles in summer, but it doesn't even work in winter (Prius limit, not conversion kit limit). I used $143.28 worth of electricity (including taxes and delivery fees) keeping my car charged, and filled up on gas once every 5-8 weeks.
It allows me to make my weekend trips for kids sports, shopping, and various errands near the neighbourhood without using a drop of gas. Now that I've had a taste of what an electric car would be like to own I want one. Making trips to the gas station seem so inconvenient now, my car sits in the driveway for 12-18 hours a day; sometimes it sits there all day. It sits in the parking lot at work for 8 hours a day. Why can't that time be used to trickle charge my car so I don't need gas?
The electric charging infrastructure already exists, it's pre-installed into every home and office parking lot. The same just cannot be said of hydrogen. Hydrogen isn't a power source, it's a power medium like batteries. Hydrogen cars today have a range similar to electric vehicles. The hydrogen version of the BMW 7 series has a range of about 125 miles; just 25 more than the Nissan LEAF's range (if we only use advertised ranges). The Tesla Model S can be equipped with a 300 mile battery pack for a vehicle MSRP of $77,000; the BMW is worth $1,000,000 (though is has an attractive lease option).
Hydrogen just adds a level of complexity that simply doesn't exist for electric vehicles. EVs will not replace all cars, at best today they can be a second car, or a single car for someone who lives in a town where everything is less than 30 miles away. Commuting, doing errands, short (less than 100 mile) trips is what you'd get an EV to do; if you do more of everything else (road trips, on-the-road salesman, long drives, etc) then don't buy an EV.